


Hazy Warmth

by Qt3_14



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canonical Child Abuse, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, M/M, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Past Child Abuse, Post-Episode: s03e14-15 The Boiling Rock, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Sokka (Avatar), Sickfic, Western Air Temple, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko’s Scar (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25755232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qt3_14/pseuds/Qt3_14
Summary: After getting back from Boiling Rock, Zuko falls sick. Zuko hates being sick and Sokka is there to comfort him.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 756
Collections: Fantastic A:TLA Fanfics!





	Hazy Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> Slight reference to child abuse and references to violent scenes. They aren’t graphic but please read carefully if that type of stuff can harm you. Stay safe! <3

After what felt like hours, they were finally back at the western air temple. Katara ran to hug her father, and nearly knocked him down with her bone tight grasp. He watched them yank Sokka into the hug too. Zuko smiled, relieved they had actually made it. Relieved to see a family reunite. His heart finally stopped hammering so loudly from all the adrenaline. It was peaceful.

He was so tired, he hadn’t realized until that moment, standing there relaxed. His eyelids were heavy, and he distantly remembered his vision going blurry before they closed. He heard a yell from Toph before he hit the ground.

-

Soft light, it was.. flickering on a ceiling? Yeah, on a ceiling, a stone one, and the fire made it a mellow orange. He felt softness incasing him, and there was something cool on his forehead. He sat up on his elbows, or at least tried to, when a sharp pain struck him. The damp cloth fell off him. His head felt so heavy and was throbbing, his vision was still a little weird. A migraine? Maybe...

“Whoa, buddy take it easy.” He was leaning over him and had his hand on his shoulder, helping him lie back down.

“... Sokka..?” His voice was rough and low. His throat was dry.

“Yeah, it’s me, don’t try to sit up.” He furrowed his brow, his head pounding.

“What..”

“You fainted right after we got back. You’ve got a minor fever.”

“How long..”

“About two days, you woke up a few other times but you weren’t really there and just went back to sleep.” He groaned. Two days? That was way too long. He needed to teach Aang, he needed to be there, he needed to-

“Hey, dude, what’re you doing?” 

Zuko was trying to get up, “‘M need to.. teach.... Aang”.

“Yeah no, I don’t think so big guy. Can you even stand?”

“Yeah, yeah gotta..” he mumbled quietly.

Sokka grabbed onto him, “No, dude you can’t, you’re just gonna hurt yourself.”

Zuko tried taking a step and everything went fuzzy, his legs faltered. The darker boy kept him from falling and set him gently back into the warm bed.

“Zuko, you can’t stand, you’re sick, stop trying to go jerkbend with Aang.”

He wanted to argue, convince him that he was fine, just tired, but he was in too deep of a hole. Instead he chose to scowl at the wall. He didn’t have a strong immune system, and he despised every time he came down sick. He couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t practice, couldn’t read scrolls, couldn’t even mediate. He just had to sit there and suffer.

“Gee, thanks, Sokka, for taking care of my stubborn ass! Oh you’re welcome, Zuko, I am pretty great.” Zuko went to complain but his voice was so scratchy. He started going into a coughing fit. His face softened up at the sick boy and put a cup of water to his lips. He drank slowly before sinking back to the bed. Zuko had now started taking note of his surroundings. He was in his room, there was one candle lit, the one he woke up to. Sokka was sitting in a chair next to his bed. There were more blankets then usual and they were soft. He was wearing his prison pants and no shirt. He also had- Oh.

He had bandages wrapped around his torso. Sokka noticed him realize that he was just about completely covered on his torso. His eyes went sad.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just fell.. it wasn’t important to what we were doing. Escaping came first. I can cry about a few bruises later.”

“Bruises? You had broken ribs. Bullshit you “fell down”. What aren’t you telling me?”

Zuko didn’t like seeing the hurt in his face. He looked away. “It didn’t hurt, I honestly forgot about it. I’ve taken worse.”

“Yeah, you didn’t feel it because you were so high on adrenaline, Zuko! You’ve been asleep for 2 days!”

“Which is exactly why I need to get off my ass! I need to train Aang!”

“You can’t help anyone when you’re wrapped up and can’t even stand! Zuko, just rest, why are you so against that?”

“Because Aang needs to defeat Ozai, and if I don’t prepare him then we’re all fucked!” Ow. That hurt his voice. Sokka sighed, annoyed.

“Listen, I had Chit Sang take over Aang while you’re out of commission. He’s a good fire bender and he can handle teaching Aang basics.” The Prince stayed quiet and tried to ignore his questions.

“Please, Zuko, what aren’t you telling me?” He glanced at him. Bad idea. His eyes were sorrowful, and his brows were knitted together. He looked.. kinda scared. His pain pulled the words from his throat involuntarily. 

“Not everyone was really... a big fan of mine. Mainly the guards...”

“They did this to you?” He whispered.

“... Yeah.”

They sat in silence for a while before Sokka grabbed his gaze.

“Um... what uh..” He hated when he did that. He’d always get lost his beautiful sapphires.

“What happened to your mom?” He stopped drinking in the sapphires. He stared at the wall with hard eyes.

“You were uh.. calling out for her. When you were asleep.”

Fuck. How stupid was he? He shouldn’t have blurted that out. He hates talking about himself, nonetheless his shitty past, what the hell was he-

“I don’t know.” Sokka eyed him carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“... One day she was here.. and the next day, she wasn’t.”

He swallowed hard. He felt nauseous. “Oh.”

They sat in the thick of it for a while.

“I’m sorry.. for being stubborn.” He looked up shocked.

“Oh, oh yeah don’t.. don’t worry about it.”

“I hate being sick. I feel... useless and it reminds me of...” Zuko went into silence on that last part, but Sokka had an idea on what he was alluding to.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve been way sicker before.”

“... When it..”

The marred skin was facing Sokka.

“Yeah...” The Prince pondered for a moment, and once he made a decision, he inhaled deeply.

“After it happened I was really sick... I was delusional and I-I uh... had to have the bandages redressed and it..... it was really bad.”

Sokka was surprised but happy that he was opening up, even if it was just by a little bit. “How.. how were you ever able to bend again? That bad of an accident, I can’t imagine...” Zuko winced at the memories, tracing the lines of the scar subconsciously.

“I didn’t, for a while. I would just start freaking out and... it was like I was back there...”

He was always confused by the origin of his scar. He’s seen firebending often, but he’s never seen anyone get a scar that big and severe. Was it Zuko who accidentally burned himself, or someone else while sparring? Was it practice that he wasn’t even part of, was just watching from the sidelines and got hit? He hadn’t considered it enough before it came out.

“Did you give it to yourself by accident?” His knuckles went white from how hard he griped the blankets, his eyes were wild. He turned to look at him, his voice barley a whisper.

“You think _I_ gave myself this?”

Shit.

Tears started streaming down his face.

_Shit_.

And he started laughing.

_**Shit**_.

“It’s so, so fuckin funny. You think I gave it to myself, you think it was an _accident_. Thought the stories would’ve spread even down to the South Pole by now, but I guess not.” He was smiling unhappily and kept laughing.

“Zuko, what are you-“

“It wasn’t a fucking accident. He knew what he was doing.” His laughing mixing in with crying, it was painful to watch. He looked him in the eye with the biggest grin and the biggest tears.

“My father burned off half of my face for speaking up.” His heart slammed into his feet.

“.... What?” He whispered. Zuko had wiped his face and lifted his hair, showing the mark going all the way to his ear and forehead.

“I was 13, I wanted to go in the war room, and I spoke out, the general challenged me to an Angi Kai, a firebending duel. I was _excited_ , I thought I was gonna win, was gonna make my father proud. But on that cold ass marble floor with everyone watching, it wasn’t the general who stood in front of me. It was the firelord, because it was his war room I was disrespecting.”

He shook his head and laughed, grief still rolling down his face. “I refused to fight like a fucking coward, and I was crying and begging on my knees. He told me I would learn respect and suffering would be my teacher. And then he burned half of his sons face off.” He was hunched over, hysterically laughing and sobbing. “And I could only come home if I brought home the avatar that had been missing for a 100 years. Gave me such a big chance.”

Sokka’s heart was ripped in two. He understood now, understood his rage, his pain, his motivation. He... he just wanted to go home. He felt sick to his stomach. He slowly placed his arms around the crying boy, and pulled him into a hug, playing with his hair and rubbing his back. His laughs dissipated into full body trembles, and his hands were stuck to his face as he wailed.

That night, as the boy with soft black hair cried into Sokka, he vowed that he would protect this boy with everything he had. Ozai would never put a finger on him ever again, and he would make fucking sure. He’d break all of his bones if he just so as looked at him wrong. He never felt such rage and grief bubble for someone else’s pain.

“He’ll never hurt you again. I swear.” He whispered into the boys hair. The boy let out a little chuckle.

“I really hate being sick.”

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda threw this together and it’s one of my only fanfics I’ve ever posted so sorry if It’s kinds crap :0


End file.
